Testing the Legend

How it was when horsepower ran free.

Few cars have left as heavy a mark on automotive history as those built by Shelby American. Not only did Carroll Shelby’s small organization produce the Cobra, one of the fastest production sports cars ever sold in America, but it dominated international and national Grand Touring racing in the middle Sixties as well. In only three seasons of racing, Cobras captured the FIA International Manufacturers Championship for Grand Touring cars—including GT-class wins at Le Mans and Sebring—the United States Road Racing Championship (progenitor of today’s SSCA Can-Am), and the SCCA’s A-Production national championship. And just for good measure, Shelby-prepared Mustangs won the SCCA B-Production championship in 1965, 1966, and 1967, and the Trans-Am championship in 1966 and 1967. That, as they say, is the stuff of legends.

It is also the stuff of great curiosity. Given the prospects for the resurgence of ultra-high-performance automobiles in the foreseeable future, the Cobra may well stand indefinitely as the fastest car ever built by an American manufacturer. And both the Cobra and the early Shelby-modified Mustang GT350 were the closest things to race cars available to the general public—before the insurance companies, Naderites, environmentalists, and OPEC turned the automotive world topsy-turvy.

All of this seemed like more than enough reason to engage in some nostalgia, fifth wheel in hand. After all, there’s no better way to come to grips with a legendary marque than to take a few choice examples out for a spin around the block—or a couple of hot laps around the track. And hooking up our electronic test gear would, for the first time, give us an accurate basis for comparing the Cobra’s performance with today’s GT cars.

To that end we rounded up a 1966 427 Cobra, a 1966 Mustang GT350, and a 1964 Cobra Daytona competition coupe, three of the most noteworthy Shelby American cars. As you might expect, they are also three of the more exclusive—and valuable—of the species. According to the Shelby American Automobile Club—a well-run, 5500-member organization that seems to know more about the cars than the people who built them do—just about any of the 14,368 Shelby Mustangs will fetch about twice its original sticker price if it’s in decent shape. Cobras, of which only 1011 were built—356 of them 427s—routinely sell for forty to sixty thousand dollars. Only six Daytona Coupes were ever built, and they’re priced accordingly; word is that there are collectors willing to pay more than $100,000 for one—though no sale has been that high yet.

Such stories are part and parcel of Shelby American lore, a rich mixture of fact, gossip, speculation, and romance that surrounds Carroll Shelby and his cars. According to the history books, when Shelby retired in 1960 after a distinguished racing career (he won Le Mans in 1959 in a factory Aston Martin DBR1), all he wanted to do was become this nation’s Ferrari. But rather than start from scratch, he brought two companies together to build his dream car. AC Cars, Ltd., a small English specialty builder, just happened to have a lightweight, tube-frame, aluminum-body roadster—the AC Ace—in need of an engine. And Ford Motor Company had a compact, 260-cubic-inch V-8 it was willing to sell.